These all died in faith. (Hebrews 11:13)
It is a great grace from God to have been raised from death to life so that we can live by faith. But it is an even greater grace from God to be preserved throughout the entirety of our lives and to die in faith. For that is indeed a divine death that brings to those who experience it unspeakable blessings.
The epitaph of the faithful from the pen of the writer of Hebrews echoes in eternity. It matters not how they died. For some, they died in their ripe old age after many years of fruitful service to their God. For others, it was the spring time of their lives. And still for others, they died a martyrs’ death. But, regardless of their exit, they went through the veil in faith and that is all that truly matters.
What starts in faith will end in faith because the Faithful One has promised to preserve us to the end. The saints of God who die in faith trusted not in their own merits nor rested in the glory of their own good works. They looked only to Him who has given them the faith they lived by and died in. Living by faith looks both to the past and to the present. Dying in faith looks to the promised future which they do not presently possess, when they will enter in to the unbroken and unaltering presence of their Lord and Savior and every spiritual blessing.
Here indeed is cosmic comfort. Whether we live or we die . . . in faith . . . we are trusting in the Lord’s faithfulness to His covenant promises. And God is not a man that He should ever lie. The promises of God are as secure as they are satisfying and each one finds its ‘YES’ and ‘AMEN’ in Christ. We all die. The question is how? Either we die in faith or we die in sin. To die in sin is to live separated from the love of God and surrounded by His eternal wrath and judgment. But to die in faith is to live submerged in the sea of the Savior’s eternal light and love.
So, how will your epitaph read when you breathe your last? If you are trusting in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, it will read as it does for all those in the “Hall of Faith” – “These all died in faith!” A divine death indeed.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 